Rent reform draft bill is 'disastrous', says Sven Clement

The Pirate Party will continue its work of the last four years. "We aren't nervous yet, and we will tackle the election campaign in a targeted manner, " Sven Clement stressed. On Tuesday morning, the MP discussed the Pirate Party's goals for the super election year 2023 with our colleagues from RTL Radio.  Referring to remarks made by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel during the New Year's reception of the Democratic Party (DP), Clement said that society needs a ladder to climb, "and not a trampoline," because on a trampoline "you can go down just as quickly as you can go up."

The Pirate Party MP did not mince his words about the planned reform of the rent law. "It's a disastrous reform that Henri Kox is proposing," Clement lamented, criticising that it would "disproportionately favour" long-term owners. Meanwhile, tenants and landlords would be "antagonised" and the reform "ultimately won't help anyone." According to the Pirate Party, interest rates are the way to help people in the current situation. The state needs to buy houses "on a massive scale" and propose a stimulus package for the construction sector.

Clement also called for a fundamental reform of the tax system. The MP argued that the tax burden in Luxembourg is too high because of the bracket creep (Editor's Note: a process by which wages and salaries are pushed into higher tax brackets as a result of indexations in response to inflation). In response, Clement thinks that the tax table should be adjusted, and the whole system, including tax credits, overhauled, adding that Luxembourg's tax system was "imported from Germany in the 1930s."

Talking about the municipal elections, Clement announced that the Pirate Party "will probably be able to run in more municipalities than originally planned." It now appears that the opposition party will be represented in "about 20" communes, as opposed to the eight to 10 municipalities that it had originally planned. "Nevertheless, we are still looking for candidates," Clement added.

As for the national elections in October, the Pirate Party's goal is to have enough MPs to form a parliamentary group, i.e., five. However, Clement stressed that "anything more than the two seats we currently have will be a win in our book." If it manages to secure six mandates, the Pirate Party would be "the clear winner of the elections."

For the time being, the opposition party wants to focus on "checking the government's work and driving it forward." Political programmes, on the other hand, "are best implemented by being in charge," Clement concluded.